“What happened after that?”

“You lost your job. Lost the baby. I took all the money when I left.”

“You had nowhere to turn, so you ended up working at a nightclub……”

“But with a murder charge hanging over you, you were pushed out everywhere you went.”

My family had always been clean. Respectable.

I graduated top of my class from a prestigious school.

And in the end, I was reduced to pouring drinks and smiling for strangers.

I forced myself to breathe evenly.

I would not break down in front of Cedric.

“After you found out what was happening to me, did you come forward? Did you clear my name?”

“You staged all of it. Every bit. All you had to do was show up, and everything I was drowning in would have disappeared overnight.”

“So? Did you do anything?”

Cedric hesitated for a fraction of a second.

“I wanted to help you.”

“But Evelyn was up for a UN goodwill ambassadorship at the time.”

“I couldn't tarnish her image at such a critical moment.”

“So……”

So, once again, I was the one who got thrown away.

I lifted my head. My eyes burned with tears I refused to let fall.

“Did you know that becoming a UN diplomatic ambassador was my dream too?”

Cedric couldn't meet my eyes.

But he still answered, his voice low and unclear.

“I knew.”

“But I didn't have another choice……”

I didn't want to hear his hollow excuses. I cut him off.

“Cedric, I know myself. No matter what I went through, I would never let myself stay at the bottom forever.”

“So what happened after that—what made you willing to confess everything now just to pull me back?”

I knew myself.

And I knew Cedric just as well.

If I had simply accepted life as a nightclub hostess, Cedric would have sighed about it and moved on. Nothing more.

There had to be something else.

Cedric was quiet for a moment, then let out a slow breath.

“You're right. You didn't give up.”

“You worked your way through school and got accepted to an elite overseas university.”

“The police dropped the charges too, because they never found any real evidence.”

“If things had just kept going that way, you would've started your life over.”

“But……but……”

His lips trembled.

“The school you applied to happened to be near where Evelyn and I lived.”

“I was afraid you'd find out the truth about what really happened, and destroy the life Evelyn and I had built.”

“So I forged a tip-off letter and pressured the university board members into blacklisting you.”

“And just like that, I destroyed the last hope you had.”

Through Cedric's cold words, I could almost see her—the version of me from that future, lost and alone.

She was holding her breath, bent over her books under a single lamp late into the night.

She was carrying all of it on her back, trying to prove herself one more time.

And in the end,

all that effort, all that hope—

erased by one word from Cedric, light as nothing.

How was she supposed to face the rest of her life after that?

How was I supposed to face the man standing in front of me now?

I stood up. Shook my head, unable to believe what I'd heard.

“You're terrifying, Cedric.”

“You're a monster.”

Cedric grabbed my shoulders, trying to steady me.

But his own eyes were glistening now too.

“Hailey, don't get upset. Just hear me out.”

“Later on, I realized what I did was… a bit wrong.”

“My conscience wouldn't let it go. I went back to see you.”

“I left you money—enough that you'd be comfortable for the rest of your life.”

“Evelyn thought I still had feelings for you. She called the police out of spite.”

“The wedding ring I gave you became the evidence that convicted you.”

“You were sentenced to three years. While you were inside, another inmate broke your leg.”

The rest of the story I could piece together without him telling me.

After prison I was crippled and disfigured.

I couldn't even get work pouring drinks at a nightclub.

All I could do was scrape by at the very bottom.

I closed my eyes, heavy with despair.

For the woman I was right now. For the woman I'd become ten years from now.

Cedric saw my face and panicked.

He grabbed my hand again, voice urgent, trying everything he could to convince me.

“I regret it, Hailey. I really regret it.”

“Evelyn and I were never happy.”

“She's strong-willed. She'll cross any line to get what she wants.”

“To her I was just a stepping stone to a better life. Our marriage was one fight after another.”

“She'd never put up with me the way you did, never support my work the way you did.”

“She'd never get up every morning to make me breakfast. She couldn't even remember I'm allergic to peanut butter.”

“I missed you more every day. I made up my mind to come back to you.”

“But by the time I found you, you were already dead in that rented apartment.”

“The body was badly decomposed, covered in maggots, and nobody had even noticed.”

“In that moment I was just… so sad. I couldn't stop being sad. I regretted everything I'd done, and all I could think about was getting you back.”

That obsession carried Cedric across time itself and set him down in front of me.

I looked at the lines fanning from his eyes, the exhaustion carved into every part of his face.

I laughed at myself, short and mocking.

“So what do you want?”

“To repent to me? Or to pick up where we left off?”

“What makes you think I'd ever forgive you?”

Cedric cried.

He couldn't get a word out, tears streaming down his face.

“I know what I did. I know I have no right to face you.”

“But every single day after you died, I lived in nothing but guilt.”

“I divorced Evelyn. I poured everything I had into funding the time-travel research.”

“I just wanted to see you one more time. Hear your voice one more time.”

“I wanted to stop all of it from happening. I wanted to live the life we were supposed to have!”

Growing up, everyone who knew us said the same thing.

Cedric and I were made for each other.

Then the Fox family moved in next door to the Gilberts.

This girl full of pride barged straight into our world.

She pulled most of Cedric's attention away from me.

He went from cold indifference to something that looked more and more like hesitation.

It wasn't that I never suspected.

But I trusted what we had.

I trusted the oath Cedric swore on his knees at my father's grave.

He let me down.

And that trust cost me everything.

I knew the answer wouldn't change anything, but I couldn't stop myself from asking.

“Cedric, when did it start between you and Evelyn?”

“Before our engagement, or after?”

Cedric took a long breath.

Like he was bracing for something he'd never said out loud.

“Evelyn and I knew each other long before that. I just never had the nerve to tell you.”

“She was my first love. She always held a special place in my heart.”

“When she first came back, I thought about breaking off the engagement to be with her.”

“But something happened with her family. She left before I ever got the chance to say it.”

“We got back in touch by accident, and before long we were sleeping together.”

“I regret it now. I really do.”

“I let what I felt for her back in school convince me she was something she wasn't. She was never the person I made her out to be.”

“It's you. You're the one I should have treasured all along.”

Cedric paused there.

Every word seemed to drain the last of his strength.

“The way you looked after you died has never left me.”

“I had someone examine your body. Hailey, it was nothing but damage.”

“Your fingers were bent wrong. Bones that had broken and healed crooked, over and over. The back of your skull—someone had hit you. Hard.”

“I can't even bring myself to think about what you went through in those ten years.”

By this point, Cedric had completely broken down.

He was apologizing to me between sobs, the words tumbling out without order.

Nothing he said was as coherent as before.

“Hailey, I know I was wrong. I won't let you go through any of that again.”

“I'll go to the police and tell them the truth.”

“Please……just give me one more chance. One chance to fix what I did.”

All those years I had known Cedric, and not once had he let me see him like this.

First time he had ever cried in front of me.

First time he had ever humbled himself enough to beg.

First time he had ever told me, and meant it, that I mattered to him.

He expected me to soften. Expected me to forgive.

Expected that watching him try would be enough to earn another chance.

He really did not know me at all.

I wiped my tears and slowly raised my head.

“Thank you for the story. It was fascinating.”

“But there is one thing you actually got right.”

I leaned forward and dropped my voice.

“The person who killed Evelyn Fox's family? That was me.”